


Uncertainty

by Poseiidon



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Character Development, Coming together... more or less, M/M, Nyongtory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 18:52:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17855174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poseiidon/pseuds/Poseiidon
Summary: Sometimes it's helpful to just take your eyes off everything else and focus on yourself, listen to yourself, see what's wrong with you. Seungri had waited too long with doing that but when he finally did, he somehow wished he had never done it. Because now he was no longer sure what exactly he wanted to have.





	Uncertainty

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, I'm going to post my first story on this website and it's in this fandom. There are two problems I encountered while writing this.  
> The first thing is that I'm not in this fandom for that long so I hope there aren't that many important details I managed to overlook.  
> The second problem is that English is only my second language. I have posted the German original on Fanfiktion.de but I decided to try to translate it so I can reach a wider audience and maybe improve my language skills a little bit ^^"  
> But I hope you enjoy it nevertheless! :)
> 
> Edit: Yes, I know what happened and I'm equally disappointed and disgusted but at the moment I still don't want to put this story down so just look at it like it was a "what if Seungri has stayed a responsible human being who never started to get in contact with all these other disgusting people" AU from the beginning.

If Seungri was honest, and with honest, he meant totally honest, even with himself, he had to realize that he felt like shit. Actually, he had felt like shit the whole past week and when he really thought about it, even the whole last month. But he had been able to ignore it the whole time. Until this morning. Until this morning where he just had to wake up to feel the whole facade which he always had built around him and which he had tried to maintain with great effort all this time, fell into a single, miserable heap of dust right before his eyes. And that's exactly what he felt like right now. Miserable.  
There was the sound of something falling to the ground and shattering coming from the room next to his, glass or something like that, maybe even porcelain. A loud cursing followed that sound and the cry of a child too. Or did it happen in the room above? Seungri didn't really know it, but he also didn't care. All he cared about was the noise it made, it annoyed him. However, the silence was something that annoyed him too. He felt like there wasn't something that wasn't annoying at the moment, he really wasn't sure what he actually wanted. He didn't know. Grumbling, he rolled to his side and away from the wall. Maybe that helped him at least to ignore the noise a little bit.  
He didn't know what he wanted. That was probably the best description of his situation at the moment. He couldn't deny that this was never the case, but normally he always knew what he wanted and he wasn't known as someone who had great difficulties making decisions. But there was this one thing that always managed to mess up his life like no other and this one thing was Jiyong. Even if Seungri spent hours thinking about it, he wasn't able to think about a time in his life after he had joined YG where Jiyong didn't mess up his life, where he didn't make Seungri feel things he shouldn't feel. Things, he never felt before, things that made him feel whole at some days but brought him pure desperation on others. And the entire thing started right from the first day they met. 

"What's your name? Or is this how you also want to be called on stage?"  
No "welcome", no name, nothing. The first words YG's Golden Child had ever said to him had been these two questions and he hadn't asked them all that friendly.  
"S-Seungri," was everything he had been able to stutter at that moment and he really hated himself for his uncertainty. His goal had been to be self-confident, to get his new members to see him as an equal member from the beginning, and not as the little kid that joined them at the last minute. But his new leader's reaction showed him that this was a lot harder than he expected. A snort, a shake of the head.  
"Seungri", Jiyong mumbled as if he couldn't believe that this was a name people actually called him. But whatever he had thought of, he had kept it to himself. Something Seungri would have been grateful for when there hadn't been this disparaging look in Jiyong's eyes instead. And disparaging wasn't even the right word, the look seemed to be harsher than that. It was precisely this look that made the younger one feel as if he'd just gone back ten years in age. He felt like a child. A child that was worth nothing and that nobody wanted. And Jiyong had been able to cause him feeling like this with just a few words.  
Nowadays he knew that even if Jiyong had had some trouble accepting him in the beginning, Seungri's perception was a little clouded by the fact that it had been no one but Jiyong who had given him that look. Although he hadn't met him in person until then, it was no secret that even at that time half YG had talked about him diligently. He had been praised on every corner, and everyone had seemed to expect a lot of him as soon as they finally debuted. So Seungri had been looking up at him before he even got to see him in person and that was one of the reasons why he felt like he got smashed down within the thirty seconds of their first conversation.  
At that time he hadn't known that this would repeat itself over and over again in the future. It had just taken too long for him to stop looking up at Jiyong, and if he was totally honest, he never really has.

But Seungri never broke down. He had carried on, always tried his best to get back up, he never gave up. After all, he was the Maknae, he had to live with it. It was part of his role, his position in the group. His identity. At first, he had learned to deal with it, then it even started to make fun. And the nights in which he cried himself to sleep silently and alone because this was the only time in which he had allowed himself to be weak, became less and less. But not fast enough that no one ever noticed. Maybe it had already been noticed before and no one had ever known how to handle it, but even if Seungri had been suspicious of this for a long time, he wasn't really sure about it nowadays. Because no one seemed to know exactly why Jiyong had woken up in Seungri's bed this one morning. Nobody knew that Seungri had a sudden low the night before. He couldn't even remember what had happened at that time but it had tortured him all evening before and he could see in Jiyong's eyes that he knew exactly what was going on. He had watched him thoughtfully but didn't really seem to know what to do. Seungri also didn't know if his leader would have tried to talk with him about it if Seungri hadn't started crying that night. And it had really been an ugly crying, every sob he had tried to smother in the pillow, to kill as much sound as possible before it could be heard outside of his room. And Jiyong could have pretended that evening that he simply hadn't heard them, nobody would have noticed. And yet he had decided to open the door instead. A quiet "Maknae?" he had thrown into the room, but all Seungri had been able to answer was another stifled sob. At that moment he had also not quite known what he wanted. One side of him wanted to be left alone at all costs. He would handle the problem, even without the help of the others. He just needed a little time for himself. That was all.  
The other side, however, had awakened as soon as he had noticed the worrying tone in his leader's voice. It was a side of himself he hadn't seen in a long time. Even if he didn't quite want to admit how much the simple thought that someone cared about him, that someone cared about his well-being, seemed to calm him down, he didn't resist in the slightest when he noticed someone lifting up one side of his blanket and cuddling himself against his back. Immediately, Seungri felt a warm hand gently resting on his shoulder and heard quiet breathing directly behind of him.  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jiyongs voice was soft, gentle, almost tender and not much more than a breath of wind. But everything around them was quiet, Seungri had heard every single word. He just didn't answer. Instead, he had turned around so that he was facing Jiyong but he hasn't looked at him, there was no need for that. Jiyong's scent had been all around him, his breath still audible, and he had been close enough that Seungri didn't even have to move his arms a lot for his hands to find a hold in Jiyong’s shirt. As soon as he had grabbed it and started to hold on to it as if it was the only light in a night even darker than usual, he realized that he was gently drawn a little closer by the arms of the other which surrounded his body like a protecting shell. And they stayed like this until the next morning. Their bodies pressed together and Seungri in Jiyong's arms.  
This was a habit they had kept for an astonishingly long time, or at least much longer than Seungri had expected. At first, Jiyong had wanted to make sure Seungri was fine, but even if he never caught him crying again, he kept coming back every night until they both started missing the other when he didn't. Until the bed suddenly seemed much too empty and too big, if one of them was missing.

At the memories of it, Seungri's gaze shifted to the empty pillow in front of him. He hadn't used the entire left half of his bed at all and therefore the pillow was still lying there the exact way he had found it when he had checked in the day before. It was unused, nobody had needed it, no one had slept here. Only he. Only he alone. Seungri noticed that this realization didn't make him feel any better at all and he wished, he was able to put this feeling into a box and throw it out the window to let it either crash down on the pavement hard enough that it shatters into a thousand pieces or to let it get run over by a car. He wanted to repress it into the farthest corner of his heart, to let it be suppressed by all the fake happiness with which he always tries to get rid of problems like these. Act like you're happy, be happy.  
As if that was that easy.  
But at least it prevented the others from becoming curious, which also was worth a lot because of all the cameras which never really stopped being all around him. They all knew him as the playful Maknae, the biggest kid in the group. The chatterbox. Sometimes even the playboy. But did they take him seriously? No, not really. He knew he had to blame himself for that but on the other side, he couldn't deny that he was kind of happy about it. Seungri wasn't someone who could express his feelings that easily, he wasn't like Jiyong. When he was thinking about songs, he usually had something cheerful in mind, he thought of the club, laughing people, dancing people. Happy strangers. He rarely thought of the feelings he had locked up inside his heart, that was just not him. As soon as the started listening to these feelings, as soon as he started to confront them, it ended up in chaos most of the time. Too often, it caused nothing but confusion, sometimes even nothing but despair. A low snort escaped him. Somehow, it was ironic how he always used Jiyong as an example of how to deal with strong emotions when Jiyong was the one who was responsible for so many of those feelings that threatened to drive Seungri out of his mind way too often. 

Seungri couldn't quite remember the time his feelings towards Jiyong had changed from simple admiration and a slight hero crush to feelings that reached far deeper than that. They had been developing slowly and steadily the more time they had spent with each other, the more Seungri trusted him, the more often he woke up in Jiyong's arms. He didn't even realize that he sank deeper and deeper day by day. Maybe it had all started when Jiyong had confided to Seungri in return one day. When he had shown to him that he also could be weak sometimes. This had been this one day Seungri realized that even Jiyong, YG's Golden Child, was just a normal person and sometimes not even more than just a boy. Jiyong had looked completely desperate that day, his eyes searching in Seungri's face for every bit of sympathy he could get. He looked kind of helpless. It had been a pure coincidence that Seungri had been the one finding him crying in his room that day otherwise Jiyong would have probably talked to Youngbae about this a few hours later. But once Seungri had found him, Jiyong hasn't hesitated to trust him.  
But maybe all of this had started on another day. Maybe it had started on one of these occasions when Seungri suddenly felt like he was more important to Jiyong than he had ever thought. Maybe on one of those times when Jiyong had expressed this with only a few words. Whether Jiyong claimed that Seungri was his or if he was defending him in front of others, publicly praising him, or even calling him a source of inspiration for his songs, each of these times left a mark in Seungri's heart, and each time he couldn't help but feel warm and secure for the rest of the day. And there have been a lot of moments like these in recent years, so it was also a bit ironic that it had been one of those times where Jiyong did or said something that caused Seungri feeling the exact opposite that made him realize his true feelings that he managed to hide even from himself all this time.  
Somehow, it wasn't even something new that Jiyong had done at that time. He had just pushed Seungri away from him once again like he had done it all those times before. But every time he did so, it hurt him a little more, although the wounds from all these times before hadn't even gotten a chance to heal. That was why Seungri had gone crazy this time, why this finally had knocked him over the edge. It was just one more time, and yet this time was one time too much. He had freaked out, right there, right where Jiyong had left him and that with the worst excuse Jiyong probably could've thought of.  
"Why don't you just tell me that you don't even want me to be around you!", he had screamed later in the evening into his phone out of sheer anger. It had just been Jiyong's answering machine but Seungri didn't care. He also didn't care if Jiyong would be able to understand just one word he was yelling. After all, he hadn‘t been that sober at that time. One single bottle of wine they had left in their dorm had been the only thing that had kept him company that day. "Just be honest! I don't ask for more than that! Please, just stop with ... Ah shit, fucking table-" Out of anger, he had smashed the empty bottle at the exact corner of the table where he had knocked his leg against. It had taken forever to collect all the pieces the next day, and the cuts on his right leg, created by the flying shards, had remained visible for a few days longer. "Just stop pretending I mean something to you, okay? I can live without you, that's not that big of a problem. I don't need that, I don't need you. Not if you only let me down again as soon as we get a bit closer, you understand? I can't do that, I don't need that! I don't have to crawl after you like a ... like a runaway dog. I'm not a damned pet that's still exciting and new and interesting in the beginning and in which you're starting to lose interest after a while just because it's there. I also have feelings, hyung, whether you believe it or not, and I just run after you because I want it. I don't have to, you understand? I don't run after you because it's the only way to survive, I only do it because you... You make me..."  
At that point, he had stopped talking. Before, he had been talking and talking, shouting out the sentences and words that first came to his mind, all because he had not thought about what he was doing. It had felt surprisingly good, all those pent-up emotions, all those feelings he had never wanted to deal with, although they'd been slumbering in him for so long, had been finally getting out of him. And under the heap of all these feelings, he had now found this particular one that had totally been present all the time, but which he had been too afraid of to look at just a little closer. Until now.  
"Because ..." he stammered, then hung up. His cell phone landed on the floor. There were too many thoughts in his head and many more ragged shreds that were all just part of a larger train of thought. But he would put them together the next morning. The morning he had to come up with some lie to explain to Seunghyun why the living room looked the way it looked and the morning he hoped he wouldn't meet Jiyong. And he didn't meet Jiyong that morning and also a lot of mornings after that. He didn't do that until he thought, or rather hoped, seeing him after all this time wouldn't tear him down too much. But he should've known that this was nothing more than a lie he told himself to make him happier. The first time he met Jiyong again, it didn't take him long to realize that all he wanted to do was listening to Jiyong's voice, to feel his skin and to see his laugh. At that moment he finally realized that he was lost. Hopelessly lost.

That the others knew about his problem, he noticed that moment Daesung entered his room with the simple question of whether they could talk. It was already dark, but Seungri's bedside lamp had lit up enough of his face that he could read both concern and a certain amount of knowledge in his eyes that he had never seen there before. Somehow the other had to have learned about the incident and just had to stretch the threads a bit further.  
"What's up?" Seungri had asked anyway, hoping it would be something else. But no, he got disappointed.  
"You know what it's about," Daesung had replied as he had sighed quietly and sat down on Seungri's bed but he had corrected himself right after. "About whom."  
For a moment the younger man had just looked at him in silence, then he had nodded.  
"I don't really know what you want to talk about, it's not like you could change that much." Seungri smiled, but his voice did not sound as solid as he wanted to and his bandmate knew him too well anyway. Therefore, Seungri just sat next to him and buried his face in his hands while one other hand gently started to stroke his back.  
"I just wish you had told us that before," Daesung muttered. He sounded a bit overwhelmed with the situation as if he still needed to process all the new information he probably got just that day. But who could blame him? Seungri wasn't quite able to understand it himself. "You don't need to keep these things to yourself. We are here for you, you know that, right?"  
All Seungri could do was to take a deep breath. He slowly began to lose control of his own body again and he hated how often this had seemed to happen lately. He clenched his hands into fists. Even if he wasn't able to see Daesung, he felt his eyes burn on his neck. He had maintained patient, but Seungri had realized he was waiting for a response. He had probably hoped for an answer, but Seungri had not been ready to give it to him. What should he have said? That he had just been blind? Totally stupid? Not mature enough to even try to understand his own feelings? To be honest with himself? There were points in his life when he believed he would never really grow up. That he would forever remain the child who had joined Big Bang all those years ago. Maybe he just had to live with it. Maybe he just had to accept that thought and should stop always pretending he was untouchable. Maybe in public, but not among his members. His members knew him. And that was the train of thought that eventually made him bury his face in Daesung's shoulder and really start crying for the first time in a while. He still remembered the hesitant reaction of the other, he probably hadn't been expecting this at all, but after a short while Daesung had wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close.  
Seungri already saw in Youngbae's and Seunghyun's faces the next day that the word had spread fast throughout the small group and only Jiyong didn't seem quite sure what was going on. Seungri knew he must've had already listened to the message he had screamed onto his answering machine a few days ago because Jiyong never missed a single message. And the more Seungri had thought about it, the more he had realized that Jiyong probably also knew about what Seungri had wanted to tell him that one night. At least that would've been an explanation for all these thoughtful looks which never seemed to leave Jiyong's face every time he looked over to the maknae. But Seungri didn't want him to know. He couldn't quite say what exactly was going on between them at that moment but he was sure as hell that he didn't want to lose Jiyong. He didn't want him to leave but he also didn't want to be the one who left Jiyong, even if he had been that angry at him not that long ago. But he couldn't help it. To be honest, Jiyong made him angry a lot of times and now that Seungri knew what he actually felt, he knew that the chaos he caused regarding his feelings wouldn't get less. But he could never pull himself away and out of Jiyong's spell, he was too weak for that. He was too grateful for all the great moments they were able to share the last years and he still wanted more of that. He hadn't been able to see Jiyong for the last days and weeks, and it had torn him apart, even when he was still convinced that keeping a distance between the two of them was the best what could happen for everyone involved. But how was he supposed to let him go?

Although Seungri had been fully convinced at that point that this possibility couldn't even be considered, the whole situation started to look totally different again just a few weeks later. He honestly didn't know exactly how everything was able to develop so quickly in such a short time, but before he knew it, he and Jiyong were inseparable again. Jiyong let him in again and for once Seungri actually had the hope that it would stay that way. He never asked for more than Jiyong could and wanted to give him, and even if Seungri couldn't deny that it caused him at least a little pain, he was able to live with it quite well. Maybe he couldn't photograph Jiyong's smile and set it as a wallpaper on his phone where he was able to look at it several times a day, maybe he wasn't able to touch Jiyong the way something inside of him screamed at him to do, and he knew he couldn't stay in his embrace forever surrounded by his arms and his scent, but Jiyong's smile was still there and the little touches, the short hugs. Jiyong was still there and that was actually what counted. But again, it was too much alcohol that night that destroyed Seungri's illusion in the end. In retrospect, he didn't quite know what exactly had happened, but first, there was the alcohol. The alcohol and an evening the both of them had spent together because the rest of them went to some party they didn't really want to go to. So instead, they had stayed at home and made themselves comfortable. In Seungri's next memory, however, were Jiyong's lips already pressed on his and a warm hand was wandering to his hip. After that, he was suddenly pressed against the wall, their shirts were already scattered somewhere on the floor, Jiyong's kisses were wandering all across his body, leaving marks, letting Seungri's heart beat as fast as it hadn't beaten in a long time. He didn't know who had taken the first step, nor did he wonder about what was happening at the moment. He just had enjoyed it. And how he had enjoyed it. The air was stuffy, it was way too hot inside the room, but that did not bother him in the slightest. It was not until he woke up the next morning and noticed he was still cuddled close to the other's chest. He didn't quite know what had happened at first, his head had been still too damp. But then he had slowly begun to realize what must have happened. His gaze had wandered to Jiyong, who was also opening his eyes at that moment. Just a little bit at first but then they suddenly had widened out of pure shock.  
They hadn't exchanged many words that morning. Jiyong had just taken his things and left him with the promise that they would talk about all of it later. Then he was gone and the bed was empty again. Seungri, however, had sat there for a while, until at some point he had managed to get up to at least move to the shower. His head was buzzing after all the drinking the night before, and he felt like he would throw up any minute, but he couldn't really care less about that at the moment. He felt miserable for other reasons and that feeling only got stronger as he overheard both Jiyong and Youngbae arguing loudly in Jiyong's room which he had passed on his way to the bathroom. He wondered when he would be the one discussing this whole incident with someone but deep inside he almost knew that this would never happen and that the whole thing was just another thing to be put aside and be hidden as well as possible. As if it had never happened and all this would just be another harmless, unimportant dream.

That all of this had actually happened, wasn't only shown by the marks Jiyong had left all across his body and the blurry pictures of their night together that kept repeating themselves in Seungri's head every time he closed his eyes or every time he saw Jiyong or even himself when he looked in the mirror. It was also shown by another of Jiyong's phases where he didn't even looked at or dared to talk to Seungri when he was the only other person in the room. And this phase seemed to be even longer than all the phases before. But maybe that was better, Seungri thought, maybe they needed the distance. He apparently couldn't control himself at all. A small part of him also seemed to want to persuade him that he shouldn't ignore the fact that Jiyong himself had been fully involved that night, that perhaps there was more behind his actions than Seungri allowed himself to believe. But he knew better than allowing that little spark of hope gaining control over him. Because why, and he had asked himself this question again and again, why should Jiyong build up the distance he always tried so desperately to maintain between them if he shared these feelings Seungri wasn't able to hide anymore?

Seungri buried his head in his pillow. One should have thought he had learned from it. One should have thought that he had to know now at least wich situations should be avoided by all costs. But as soon as Jiyong had moved closer again, Seungri had let him in without much resistance. Not that long before, he still was convinced that he should never ever allow this to happen again, but he hadn't been able to resist very long. Almost not at all. And quicker than he realized, he was trapped in the same hole again as before. In the beginning, he had tried to convince himself that this was only because he was generally surprised that Jiyong had been looking at him and talking to him again, but he knew that he was just too weak. So weak that all the things he had told himself to avoid because he knew he would only regret them afterwards had happened again, only that this time it had started at a party. Both had been drinking too much again, especially Seungri, Jiyong had brought him home and when Seungri woke up the next morning, he was pressed against a naked Jiyong once again. Only this time Jiyong had disappeared when the younger man was in the shower.  
Actually, Seungri should have been relieved that Jiyong had fled so quickly, that at least saved him an unpleasant conversation, but there was one thought that didn't really left his mind. If something happened once, there is a great chance for it being nothing more than an accident but if it happens twice in a time span of not even more than six months, it lowers the chance of that drastically. He knew that from his point of view all of this was definitely more than that but what they've done was something that required the action of two people and not just one. So how was it possible that it had happened again?  
That was the next time Seungri had felt like crying, and so did. Completely alone and only wrapped in the protective warmth of his bed. His face pressed into his pillow so that nobody outside his room was able to hear his sobs. Like in the old days. Like when there hadn't been a Jiyong who was looking after him. And he didn't feel any different than he had felt at that time. He felt useless, vulnerable, ignored. Like someone who didn't belong, like someone who just messed things up, who brought nothing but chaos. And he had realized all of this too late because he wasn't more than just a stupid kid. Nothing more than a child. Nothing had changed, it all had stayed the same. Whether he was fifteen years old or in his early twenties...  
This time Youngbae had actually come to talk to him, but Seungri wasn't in the mood for talking. He was aware that his hyung knew Jiyong better than anyone else would ever do, but he had reached a point where he didn't care that much what Jiyong thought of him, after all, Jiyong had to have enough reasons to stay out of his way by now. So he had kicked Youngbae out of his room and told him to leave him alone. And that had been the last time he had even talked to any one of their group, as far as his childish screaming could even be described as talking. After that Seungri had to fly to Japan for a few shows and therefore he was now alone in a bed that was way too huge, alone in a hotel room that was way too loud and way too quiet at the same time. He was alone. Only in the company of his thoughts and memories. The last few days he had appeared on a few TV and radio shows, always keeping a fake smile on his lips, because if he was really good at something, then building up a facade and protecting his feelings from being seen. The only problem was that he couldn't protect them from himself anymore. He had looked at these feelings once and that made it impossible for him to unsee them again. That was in the past now.  
His phone suddenly started to vibrate, but he didn't even look at it, he knew what it was anyway. He rarely disconnected it from its airplane mode lately, so at least he could protect himself from all those potential messages in which some of the members might try to drown him in. So it could only be his alarm clock, which told him that he should get started to get ready now. After all, they wanted him back to Seoul in only a few hours. Back in the same city as Jiyong. A thought that didn't quite let him go. The fact that they hadn't exchanged a word with each other since this one incident never let him go either and a part of him wanted nothing more than to run straight back to him, but something prevented him from doing so. What was stopping Jiyong from disappointing him again? He would disappear anyway, ignore him. As always. And Seungri began to feel that he could impossibly go through this again, he had done this way too often by now, and it had ended way too often in total chaos. He couldn't do that anymore, it was too much. Maybe now was the time to let go, even if that had always been the last thing he wanted. But sometimes there wasn't any other choice.

Still plagued by this decision, he entered the plane and left it just a little later in Korea. He went through the show as usual, although this time he tried a bit too much to get it over with. And when his manager wanted to talk to him right after he got from the stage he realized, that everyone else had to be noticing his misery as well. He tried his best to play it cool, but this whole situation was just the icing on the cake. Even for outsiders, his facade already seemed to crumble. The only thing he had always trusted in was that something like this would never happen. And now it did.  
It was no miracle that all of this didn't really lift his spirits so on his way back he was in such a bad mood that he hardly even noticed it when they arrived at his home. He quickly told his driver goodbye, then he got out.  
If he hadn't been in such a bad mood, he might've noticed the light that shone through his kitchen window and the door, which was not as tightly locked as usual. He only noticed that something changed that moment he entered his kitchen and suddenly saw someone standing in the middle of it. He didn't quite believe his eyes.  
It was Jiyong.  
"Ji-" He didn't know what to say. He hadn't even taken off his coat yet and he still had his keys in his hand, but at that moment he was too surprised to even move a muscle. Was he glad to see him or was he angry that he just showed up without any warning? And after he just ran away that one morning? The last morning they had seen each other? Seungri didn't know it. And there it was again: that damned insecurity that had accompanied him here and there for all those years and always drove him to despair. He couldn't even put into words how much he hated it.  
They stood there for a moment. Totally silent and motionless, no further reaction from either of them. Until Jiyong took a step forward.  
What exactly he had planned, Seungri couldn't say, because he immediately interrupted him by taking a step backwards himself, hands raised a little, almost defensive. A movement that didn't go unnoticed, because Jiyong stopped. He looked Seungri up and down until his gaze went back to his face and suddenly he seemed to notice something he had been unable to recognize before. The look on his face changed to something unreadable.  
"Something has changed," Jiyong said, and for a moment Seungri didn't quite know if he had heard correctly.  
"Oh, do you think so?" His voice dripped with sarcasm, another thing that the other one hadn't seem to expect. Seungri noticed a slight hint of pain appearing in Jiyong's eyes, and normally he would've felt bad about that, but not now. Now it just animated him to keep going. At least this one time he had to tell Jiyong his real thoughts, what he really felt. "You arrive here, in the middle of the night, waiting in my house, without my knowledge, on a day where I come back from a multi-day business trip, to tell me that? I'm sorry, hyung, but I'm afraid I'll have to tell you that I had noticed that myself already. So thank you for nothing." And with that, he turned back and left the kitchen to hang up his coat and at the same time to get away from Jiyong, who, however, followed him.  
"I'm here to apologize."  
"And you couldn't choose another time for that?" Seungri angrily threw his keys in the approximate direction they belonged and hung up his coat before turning toward the stairs. He just wanted to sleep. But Jiyong didn't give up.  
"I was an asshole."  
That actually got Seungri to turn around and he really could see the desperation in Jiyong's eyes. A realization that almost made him become soft. But not now. That had to be over.  
"You were," he answered. "And you're going to continue being an asshole if you won't let me get a little sleep now, for fuck's sake." He turned back to take another step toward the stairs. But as angry as he was, and even as angry as he even tried to be, the next sentence made him stop in mid-step and turn around.  
"I love you."  
He looked back at Jiyong. It was not necessarily something they had never said to each other before, but it had never had such a deep meaning as this time. And Seungri had never seen Jiyong mean that one short, actually simple sentence so seriously. And yet he only shook his head and his lips turned into a sad smile.  
"You had your chance, Jiyong, I can't do this anymore. I give up."  
But Jiyong also just shook his head a bit as he started to move a little closer." As I said, I was an asshole and ... and I made mistakes, a lot of mistakes even... but-"  
"How should I know that you won't ever repeat these mistakes? Like every other time, I've started to trust you again? Like every other time, I started to move closer again?"  
Seungri's reply seemed to hit the leader right in his feelings. He winced a little and his face took on a more painful expression than before.  
"I ... I'm a complicated person, Seungriyah, sometimes even more complicated than you want to realize," he began to explain. "And .. and sometimes I think that I bring those who are close to me nothing more than problems. That nobody is really safe in my presence. That I'm going to hurt them in the end."  
The painful expression on his face had only increased further and although his voice was way quieter now, Seungri could easily hear the uncertainty in it. If he grew louder, it would probably break.  
"You've really caused some problems for me," the younger replied but not as cold as actually had planned. Something inside of him began to change if he wanted or not. Something in him wanted to forgive him. But could he do that? Right now just after Seungri had finally decided to let go? "I can't possibly come running back to you if you only -"  
"Treat you like a runaway animal?" A thin and sad smile was formed on Jiyong's face. "I remember your call back then, you had told me exactly that. You sounded so desperate then, it was hard for me to listen to the whole call and not to stop it in the middle. "  
"But then, why did you continue?" A simple question, short and simple. And yet the very one that had been burning on Seungri's lips for so long, the question that had never left him, the question had wanted to be asked so often. And now the time had come.  
"Because even then I had persuaded myself that I would cause you less damage this way. That I would've hurt you more if I had stayed with you."  
For a moment Seungri didn't quite know what to answer. He wasn't even sure about what to feel. On the one hand, he felt as if his heart was being pierced by an icicle, but on the other, he hadn't felt so warm for a long time. It was a contradiction in itself and it made his anger fade away a little more.  
Whether he wanted or not, his eyes became teary again and he began to clench his fists, hoping to keep at least a little bit of control. Jiyong looked at him for a moment, then carefully stepped a bit closer until Seungri could almost feel his breath on his face again.  
"I totally understand if you need distance, I really do," Jiyong's voice was gentle and barely more than a breath of wind and just loud enough that Seungri could understand him without further ado. "I just wanted to make sure you knew I am just so damn sorry. If I could rewind time, I would do it immediately, but all I have and all I can think about is the pain on your face I had caused so many times before. And if there's one person on this planet I don't want to see in pain at all costs, it's you."A dry laugh escaped his throat. "I was just a stupid idiot. We have known each other all this time and you know all of my darkest sides by now. If you couldn't accept them, you would have run away a long time ago. But you stayed. All this time you stayed. I'm so sorry. It was a stupid mistake, every single time, and it took me way too long to see it."  
Seungri never knew what answer to except if he ever asked this question he just asked but even if he had thought about it a lot the last days and weeks, he couldn't help but feel surprised about it. He knew he always had wanted Jiyong to like him back, he had wanted that from the first day they met if not even before that, but he had never expected how good it would feel to know that Jiyong even liked him the way Seungri liked him. The tears were running down his cheeks by now but he didn't care. He didn't care because suddenly, he was happy, suddenly his heart wasn't heavy anymore. Suddenly, he felt like flying.  
So Seungri didn't even try to look Jiyong in the eyes, he just kept his head lowered. And even when he couldn't see that much, he knew how much he had to move forward to cover the distance between them, his hands still found Jiyong's back and his face his shoulder and his neck. And almost immediately, he felt two arms around his own body that pulled him closer than he already was. A smile spread across his lips as the warmth swept through his body and Jiyong's far too familiar smell began to surround him. His hands buried themselves in Jiyong's shirt. Maybe he knew what he wanted after all. Because this felt right.


End file.
